Stacks Seniors Start Season With a Win

For the sixth year in a row our Seniors won their first outing of the season in round 2 of the Town League played in Mitchels home venue on this Sunday afternoon (3rd Feb). The game was evenly balanced in the opening stages with both sides level on three points each after ten minutes – all our three inside forwards getting on the score sheet – Fergal Ryan with the opening point after two minutes, followed by Gearóid Fitzgerald in the 5th and Shane O’Callaghan on target four minutes later.

The strongish cross-field wind didn’t favour any side in particular but we hit a purple patch in a five minute spell (11th to 16th minutes) putting over four unanswered points. The first of these came from a long-ranged effort from team captain on the day, Conor Jordan (Conor, along with his midfield partner, Wayne Guthrie dominated the centre throughout the hour). The other three points were put over by Shane O’Callaghan – two from frees and one a beautiful left-footed effort from play.

With both sets of defences dominating, the remaining fourteen minutes of the half yielded just one point for either side – ours coming in the 29th minute from Darragh Scanlon when he was put through with a perfect pass from Fiachna Mangan. This left us ahead by double scores at the break (0-8 to 0-4).

We moved even further ahead in the early stages of the second half and led by 11 points to 4 after the opening 12 minutes. The first of these came in the 34th minute when a quickly-taken free by Darragh Scanlon found Ronan Shanahan and Ronan’s brilliant run up-field eventually fond Fergal Ryan who put over his second of the day. The other two were scored by Shane O’Callaghan and David Fitzmaurice who also had an excellent game all through.

But whether we rested on our laurels or ran out of steam we just scored two more points during the rest of the half while Mitchels, as they usually do, upped a gear, putting over a further six during this period. Our two remaining points came from Wayne Guthrie in the 57th minute and Fergal Ryan (who had the first point of the game in the 2nd minute) scoring the last point of the game in the 62nd minute.

So a satisfying enough performance which will have pleased Wayne Quillinan and his colleagues (John O’Sullivan, Damien Ryall, Eoin Colgan, Jonathan Conway, Tommy Naughton and Fionán Hallinan) for the time being at least.